Titans of Chaos

That little voice people are supposed to hear when they are in deep need of common sense spokenow in my ear. It told me to go back and get Victor and Colin, because I should not be alone. Thisshop filled up most of a long city block. It was bigger than Abertwyi village. The fact that Archercould walk up to me in the dressing room showed that across the shop was too far away.

I did not tell my little common sense voice to shut up- I would never do that-but I told it to talk alittle quieter. Just a little. Only for a minute.

Because at that very moment, I was looking out across a wide countryside of modern musicalinstruments. There, bright beneath the neon lights, alone in an almost empty store, I saw it.

There it was, perfect and perfectly tasteless.

It was a guitar. An American guitar. Just like the ones the rock stars use, all those loud andunkempt boys Colin had watched so avidly on the telly during our crossing on the QueenElizabeth II.

It was black and sleek and metallic and shiny, and had a weird-looking triangular sound-boxinstead of the normal hourglass shape. It looked like an alien rocket ship poised for takeoff.

My eye fell on that guitar, and I fell in love with it. I had to have it, to get it for Colin, and it hadto be a surprise.

My thought: Colin didn't hate music. He only hated good music. Classical music, Brahms andBach and Beethoven. Music in four voices, point and counterpoint, grace notes and floatingglissandos.

Ah, but rock and roll was a different matter, wasn't it? Drumming backbeat, screaming guitar,banshee-shrieks of sound, all mangled and compressed together into thundering avalanches ofpure noise! It had Colin written all over it. It was perfect for him. Perfect!

So I went off alone. The clerk, or maybe he was the manager, was a bent, balding man with asunburned scalp and white puffs for eyebrows. He unlocked the display case and took the guitarout and showed it to me. "What type of amplifier does your friend have?"

"How do you know I am not buying it for myself?"

He smiled a bit into his mustache, and nodded and looked shy, but did not answer the question.

Maybe I was holding it in a way that showed I knew nothing about guitars.

The price he asked was more than I wanted to spend. On the other hand, we were about to leavecivilization forever, and the money would be of no earthly use to me hereafter.

I was not very good at haggling, higgling, or chaffering, but I admitted it was a gift for a friend,and that I did not have very much money.